History of the Last Supper
 Leonardo da Vinci painted the “Last Supper” in
1497 on a dining room hall wall in a church in
Milan, Italy
400 years ago
 It is 15 feet high and 29 feet long
 da Vinci was commissioned by the church to do the
painting and he really wasn’t that excited about
doing it. He would rather invent but he had to
eat
 Religion has always been a theme used throughout
the ages
 da Vinci intention was to make the event seem as
real as possible
THE STORY
 Christ’s popularity was growing among the people
and it was beginning to upset the Romans and
certain members of the church, who wanted to
arrest him.
 Christ and his 12 disciples or followers gathered to
have supper. Christ knew that one of the disciples
had already told the Romans that he would point
out Chirst to them.
 Christ has just spoken” One of you shall betray
me”
 Anyone know his name?
Judas
Clues to find Judas
 He has pulled back violently away from Christ
 He holds a money bag
 He has knocked over a container of salt and it is
spilled on the table – which is a sign of evil and
bad luck
When you look at each disciple you will see a different
emotion or reaction to Christ’s statement on their
faces and in their gestures, this was very important to
da Vinci
BACK TO HISTORY
 It was painted 400 years ago, several things
happened
 da Vinci decided to try a new painting method,
mixing the paint with wet plaster, didn’t work
very well, the paint begin to peel off.
 The church flooded
 The walls cracked form the heavy street traffic
 Smoke from the kitchen darkened the painting
 Humidity and smog contributed to the growth of
mold an mildew
 During WW11 the church was bombed in an air raid
but the wall was left standing
 Later they rebuilt the church and decided to
increase the doorway to the kitchen cutting off
Christ’s feet and the disciple’s feet also
 Their were attempts to restore it but they just
made it worse
 In 1946 they attempted to restore it again it
took 8 years to reach the original paint
 Now you can see the individual threads of the
table cloth
 The cups and saucers match those used in the
dinning hall at the time it was painted
 You can see now lemon slices on the saucers
 Gold trim round the rims of the glasses
Really cool fact about the face of Judas